The Americans with Disabilities Act is a United States federal statute enacted in 1990 to prevent discrimination against individuals with disabilities in employment, public accomodation, transportation,... more +

The Americans with Disabilities Act is a United States federal statute enacted in 1990 to prevent discrimination against individuals with disabilities in employment, public accomodation, transportation, communications and governmental activities. The Act defines a covered disability as those mental or physical impairments that substantially interfere with one or more major life activities. Five different federal agencies are responsible for enforcing the ADA: Department of Labor, Department of Justice, Federal Communications Commission, Department of Transportation and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. less -

Determining the essential functions of a job can be tricky, especially if there is no information or documentation with which to compare and consider. In this case, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit considered...more

What’s an employer to do when a disabled employee has repeated opportunities to ask for an accommodation but doesn’t act on them? In a recent case, a federal court in Texas ruled that the employer was justifiable in...more

If a commercial driver is diagnosed with chronic alcoholism, can his employer terminate him a week later because his diagnosis excludes him from performing the essential functions of his job? In Jarvela v. Crete Carrier...more

Curley v. City of North Las Vegas, No. 12-16228 (December 2, 2014): The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals recently affirmed a judgment against a worker who claimed that he was fired because of his hearing impairment in violation...more

From the beginning, the employee had attendance and punctuality problems, and the problems didn’t improve even when the employer adjusted her schedule. After she was diagnosed with MS, the company approved intermittent FMLA...more

Last month, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals answered this question in the negative and found that an employee’s request for long-term disability benefits did not amount to a request for a reasonable accommodation in the...more

Can an employer terminate an employee out of a belief that the employee is too distracted from his job duties due to caring for a relative with a disability? That was the issue in the recent case, Kourimihelakis v. Hartford...more

From 1991 until 2011, Larry Alexander worked as a pathologist for Avera St. Luke's Hospital in South Dakota. Under the terms of his contract, Alexander was an independent contractor free from control of Avera. Alexander paid...more

Steep Penalties for Not Participating Said to Make Program Involuntary and Violate Disabilities Act -
MILWAUKEE -- Manitowoc, Wis.-based Orion Energy Systems violated federal law by requiring an employee to submit to...more

In Weaving v. City of Hillsboro (--- F.3d ----, C.A.9 (Or.), August 15, 2014), the federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals was asked to decide whether, consistent with the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”), the city...more

The Americans with Disabilities Act prohibits employers from requiring employees to submit to medical examinations in the absence of business necessity. In an unpublished decision released last month, the Fourth Circuit Court...more

As we have recently noted, and as many employers have probably bemoaned a time or two, sometimes it feels like the legal concept of “reasonable accommodation” has little to do with real-world notions of what is reasonable,...more

A Florida court recently let a claim proceed under the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”), even though the employee had been terminated for a positive drug test and the ADA has a specific exclusion for current drug...more

An employer faces a difficult situation when a temporarily disabled employee who cannot perform his or her essential job functions requests an accommodation. This situation becomes significantly more complicated when the...more

In a recent opinion by the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals involving a Type-1 insulin-dependent diabetic, the court found that passing a Department of Transportation medical examination was an impermissible “qualification...more

The Texas Commission on Human Rights Act (TCHRA) provides that a “current condition of addiction” to alcohol, drugs, or controlled substances is not a covered “disability.” In Melendez v. Houston Independent School District...more

Let me share a story about UPS, although in the end, this story has nothing to do with UPS.
For about the past 10 years, UPS has maintained a policy of terminating any employees who are unable to return to work after...more

The Third Circuit Court of Appeals recently issued a decision holding that an employer's termination of an employee for violating a very broad and restrictive return to work agreement (RWA), which prohibited the employee from...more